


The sea swept in (and left us all speechless)

by lapoesieestdanslarue



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Because it's them, M/M, and pining obvs, just fluff, literally just.... fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 08:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11688288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lapoesieestdanslarue/pseuds/lapoesieestdanslarue
Summary: Combeferre and Enjolras and how they come together; featuring introspective pining, jellyfish and one horrible fish pun.





	The sea swept in (and left us all speechless)

**Author's Note:**

> This is all Sara's fault tbh

“I don't know, Enj,” Combeferre is saying, uneasy. “I watched this documentary-”

“It’s not like those big corporate ones!” Enjolras insists. He squirts through his sunglasses and stabs at the bright text on the information board outside the aquarium. “Look. It says it has ‘the utmost concern for the well-being of all our creatures, and follow the optimal disciplines to ensure a happy and safe environment for the amphibians in our care.’”

Enjolras looks back to him, taking off his sunglasses to optimise the pleading in his big baby-blues. “C’mon, Ferre. Proceeds go to rehabilitating injured dolphins! Oh! We could go _whale watching._ ” 

This wasn't part of the original plan. They're on a grand tour of Europe to far flung places neither of them have ever seen before. Two weeks in and they've gone straight from Paris to England, and then over to Ireland on a ferry. Originally it was supposed to be a quick few days driving through the country to the south where they'd get a ferry back over to the south of France and then onwards to conquer the world. But they've accidentally fallen in love with the place. The dramatic landscapes, no county the same. The rolling green hills, the smiles from strangers, the small villages too beautiful to ever accurately describe. 

So here they are, off the beaten track, on a scorching hot day in a small little town in West Cork called Schull. And here they are, best friends since they were five years old, standing outside a quaint little aquarium, Enjolras trying to coerce Combeferre to come in with him. 

Enjolras’s hair is gone wild with the humidity, Combeferre is sweating beneath his glasses. 

Combeferre is enamoured with Enjolras, Enjolras is head over heels for Combeferre. And as much as they don't know, both of them in their own little way, also know. 

(Later, when he's explaining this to Courfeyrac, Enjolras will say “It's like… it's like knowing that the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening, or those people who knew from a tiny age that they would be teachers or actors or doctors. I just knew.”

“Yeah but knew _what_?” The other man asks.

Enjolras, in a rare moment, struggles for words. “Just…. That I would always love him, no matter what. And enough optimism to think that maybe the universe was kind enough that one day he'd return my feelings.”)

In the now, Combeferre is sighing, a tired smile on his face suggesting that he'd never have said no in the first place. “Alright then,” he relents, grinning when Enjolras breaks out into a beam and drags him inside. 

They're greeted by a cheery young girl, who's pony tail bobs when she speaks. She gives them their tickets- “Make sure you keep it for the scrapbook,” Enjolras had instructed Combeferre when he'd taken them off the cashier. “We have a _scrapbook_?”- and they set off into the underwater adventure of ‘Aquaworld’. 

It’s worth the €10 just to see the open-mouthed wonder on Enjolras’s face, a land-locked kid from Paris who'd never been on the open ocean before this endeavour, staring in admonishment at the fish, nose pressed into the glass. 

“There are so many,” he says quietly, as if he might disturb them. “So many colours.”

It's strange to see him like this, but all the more endearing. It's easy to forget that despite how he carries himself, the way he can spin words to gold like the best of them, Enjolras is still very much a kid. Only just 20, never having seen the outside of France before this, short of hard knocks and life experience that time has waiting for him. He's so young, still baby faced, and it almost hurts to watch him. Not that Combeferre can say much, being only a month older. But it's the softness of Enjolras’s features, unweathered, and the knowledge of all the hurt that the world is going to hurl at him. To watch him like this, at his most innocent, and know it's the dwindling few of these glances Combeferre has left before the features garden, the faith Enjolras has changes, before he has to regulate, _that's_ what hurts.

Enjolras catches him, turns and meets his gaze. “What?” He whispers, smiling ever so slightly. 

Combeferre smiles back. “Nothing.”

~*~

They could spend hours like that. They nearly do, by the time they reach the jellyfish it's pushing onto 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 

Enjolras oohs and aahs through it all, Combeferre watches him. They read the information boards, take pictures with the fish and of the fish. Enjolras tries to take a time lapse before realising he actually has the setting on slow-motion, and, not only that but you can see him frowning in the reflection in the glass. Combeferre spends ten minutes laughing about that, Enjolras pouts and laments the loss of what would have been a nice video, and then Combeferre attempts to console him. (By which he means, he finds another tank with pretty fish, makes sure the setting is on time lapse and finds the best and awkwardest position to take the video so neither of them obscures the view and tries not to melt at Enjolras’s delighted smile).

“Did you know jellyfish can clone themselves?” Combeferre says offhandedly. They're standing side by side, hands on knees, backs bent and faces close to the glass as they watch the umbrella shaped creatures float up and down, their long, wispy tentacles trailing after them. 

Enjolras whips his head to look at Combeferre, his golden curls falling into his eyes. “Bullshit.”

“No bullshit,” he answers. “If you cut a jellyfish in two, they can regenerate and create two new organisms.”

“Shit,” Enjolras breaths.

They turn back to look at the creatures, following them up up and up. Silence passes between them comfortably, neither of them daring to break it. 

So they do what they always do, and communicate through glances, barely-there touches. Hints of presence, of the possibility of something more. 

Combeferre looks at Enjolras, the way the light reflects on his face, white ripples on a golden surface, pure light on pure light. 

Enjolras looks at Combeferre, the way the blue tints his skin, accentuating his features, his strong lines and soft lips, the gentle slope of his almond eyes. 

Eventually, they meet in the middle.

White light and blue shadows, moving together in the darkness of the aquarium. Years of longing, perfect pining, coming to its denouement. 

Foreheads pressing together, index fingers tracing over the ridges and slopes found in cheekbones and features, breaths gliding over lips. And eventually, under the artificial moonlight of the aquarium, two mouths that are made for each other fit together perfectly. 

It's the same exhilaration you get when you dive into freezing water- it's a shock, it's fire and it's perfection. It’s everything he's imagined and more. 

It's them. It's Combeferre and Enjolras in an aquarium in the middle of nowhere in Ireland with jellyfish watching them, because it's them. 

After a minute, or two or ten, they break for air. Enjolras leans into him, pressing a kiss against his collarbone. 

“Combeferre,” he says quietly. 

“Mmhm?”

“ _Whale_ you be mine?”

Combeferre freezes. Pulls back, hands on Enjolras’s shoulders. 

“ _What._ ”

Enjolras bursts out laughing, loud and happy, reverberating off the walls. It's joyous, exuberant, in your face, and they don't care. 

He pulls Enjolras close to him again, shaking against each other with laughter. 

It's Combeferre and Enjolras, it's underwater, with jellyfish watching them, in the middle of nowhere, the whole world stretching out before them. 

It's them.

**Author's Note:**

> [ come cry with me on tumblr](http://czernxy.tumblr.com/)


End file.
